


first and perhaps last time

by animal0123



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 04:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8954221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animal0123/pseuds/animal0123
Summary: two people in the calm before the storm, or; philip’s thinkpiece on life and lukas





	

**Author's Note:**

> set in 1x08, on the morning after the bed scene. title unceremoniously filched from frightened rabbit, a Good Good Band that has nothing to do with this fic whatsoever
> 
> this is basically me barfing all of my good and bad Feelings about this show into a 1k rambly nonsense spree enjoy

Lukas is still sleeping. Well, pretending to. The lack of nightmare-related thrashing is a dead giveaway. Also, the way he leans into the touch when Philip strokes the shell of his ear with a thumb.

It’s too weird, Philip thinks. For one, the fact that Lukas lets him do this now. For another, the fact that Lukas called him down here in the first place. For a third, just the idea of a moment like this existing amongst the shitstorm they’ve found themselves in. It seems like a dream; the kind that you think is a good dream while you’re in it, but that becomes a bad dream once you wake up and realize it wasn’t real, can never be real, will never be real.

He feels like every time he takes his eyes off this thing, it gets bigger, swelling to new unimaginable proportions. Of course, that’s a triple homicide for you. Kind of a big deal. He’d let Lukas convince him, initially, that no one would ever need to know they were there. Now the gun is in evidence, Bo’s cabin has been stripped from ceiling to floorboards, and Lukas is carrying a glorified FBI baby monitor.

He thinks he knows deep down that it’s only a matter of time until the whole story – _their_ whole story – comes out. He thinks Lukas knows that deep down too. It makes him hostile. Defensive. Impossible to be around. Fear is the thing that makes him terrible; it can even turn him into a monster. Philip has known this ever since that first time he tried to kiss him and it seemed for a second like Lukas was going to bounce him off a wall.

Lucky for Lukas, pathetic sap that he is when he remembers how to act like a normal human again, the waiting game is something Philip excels at. And everybody reacts to trauma differently, so Philip thinks he can forgive him for most of it. All the same, when the bad days outnumber the good days but the good days still somehow make up for it, Philip can see where it’s gone rotten between them, can hear his old therapist whispering _unhealthy power dynamic_ , can see his mom wringing her hands nervously and imploring _Be careful, baby_. It’s why Philip pushes back sometimes, why he says no when he’d rather say anything else or why he leaves Lukas standing shocked and alone on his porch instead of pulling him into his arms and telling him everything would work out, it would all be fine. Because Lukas is a taker and Philip is, innately, a giver. And if this is ever going to work with them, they’re going to have to be very, very careful.

Lukas is just starting to learn to be careful. Philip has been careful since the first time the kid with the bleached-out hair and the offensively neon jersey approached him at the corner store and asked, grinning toothily and making, like, _excessive_ eye contact, “You any good at shooting video?”

In present time, Lukas sighs. Philip watches his chest (he never did put a shirt on, like an asshole) cave in on itself. _You don’t scare me_ , he thinks at him, _You never have, but nice try_. Lukas sighs again, this time like he might actually be going back to sleep, which obviously can’t be allowed to happen.

Philip double-checks the time on his phone, nudges Lukas's shoulder with his head. “We should probably get up.”

“Oh my god, I wanna suffocate you,” says Lukas without opening his eyes. “Never say that to me again.”

Philip grins, but can't help cutting his eyes at the hallway. “I'm just saying, we didn’t close the door –”

“Helen and Gabe aren’t just gonna walk in on me sleeping.”

“If they hear voices –”

Lukas finally cracks an eye, reaching out with a distinct lack of coordination to cover Philip’s mouth with his hand. “I don’t care, man.”

Philip grabs his wrist. “Not right now, maybe. But you’d be pissed about it if you were awake.”

In his most aggravated voice, Lukas says, “I’m awake _now_. For some reason.”

“If you were all the way awake. And that’s when it becomes a whole lot of my problem.”

“Right now you’re _my_ whole lot of problem.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Okay,” says Lukas decisively, and commences making good on his promise to suffocate Philip with the pillow from behind his head. Philip, having the unique advantage of being fully conscious, captures the pillow almost immediately. A short wrestling match ensues, the outcome of which is unclear as neither of them can really be bothered to sit up or roll over.

“Seriously though,” Lukas says once Philip has returned the pillow and dropped his head back down onto the mattress. “I could care less.”

“ _Couldn't_ care less,” Philip corrects him, and obviously doesn't do a good enough job of hiding his grin because Lukas jabs him in the ribs in retaliation.

“Whatever. Anyone could – like, the killer could walk in that door right now and I'd be like, _oh, have you met Philip?_ ” 

“Not funny,” says Philip, although it is a little funny.

“It’s a joke.”

Lukas’s hair is catching the light in a very distracting way. It’s all Philip can do to keep from running a hand through it, like he did throughout most of last night. Lukas has nightmares. So does Philip, but his are more the waking kind, intrusive thoughts and memories jockeying for position the second he slips up and lets his mind wander. His mind’s current favorite thing to torture him with is the idea of doing all of this without Lukas. This is pretty much completely ridiculous, because without Lukas’s almost pathological gay panic they’d never be in this situation to begin with, but still. The thought of having no one to go through this with terrifies him. Even _with_ Lukas he’s felt alone sometimes. Not so much recently, but before. He keeps expecting it to go back to how it was before, but then Lukas will do something like –

“Hey,” says Lukas, and bumps his hand against Philip’s leg. “It was a joke.”

Philip shakes his head. “You and your fucking jokes,” he tells Lukas, and kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr at alikwrites! let's be friends


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